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Archive for July, 2009

Garden Party!

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , on July 31, 2009 | 6 Comments »

In honor of the slow but steady return of my Zen, I’ve decided to throw an online tropical garden party, and you’re all invited. Pour yourself a mai tai, crack open a coconut, and join in the fun :)

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I think it’s the wild ginger that’s brought back my Zen. It’s in blume now. Finally. It’s everywhere. Have you ever smelled wild ginger? It smells so creamy and delicious it makes negatives thoughts impossible. Makes me want to eat the air. You may have noticed the girls chowing down on some strange tropical fruit in a few of the pictures. I’d tell you what it is, but I haven’t a clue. They found it on the ground. As part of my new Zen, I’ve stopped endlessly prying random fruits out of the their mouths. It’s the tropics. There are tropical fruits everywhere, and I have now excepted that they will pick them up and try to eat them no matter what I do. Most things they pick up are either not yet ripe or way past perfect and get spit out anyway. I read a hilarious E.B. White essay once (well, all his writing is awesome) about how one of his sisters took an…hmm…what’s the word? I guess, “organic” approach to parenting, where she let her kids eat anything they happened to find in the yard- worms, grubs, you name it. I may not go that far, but if they worst they can do is gnaw on the bamboo shoots, passion fruit, and bananas, that cover my lawn and park, I say go for it girls- do your worst!

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Miscommunication

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , on July 29, 2009 | 5 Comments »

I’m starting to think there’s something about me that makes people want to say insane, illogical things to me.

Exhibit A was that nutjob I talked smack about last week. Exhibit B is my neighbor. The other day she started talking some serious smack about the East Coast. “I can’t stand the East Coast. I can’t stand people from the East Coast. They’re terrible, just awful people…” At first I thought she was joshing me, but when she carried on, becoming more vehement in her anti-East Coast rhetoric, I stopped her. “Um…you know I’m from the East Coast, right?”

Neighbor: You can’t be from the East Coast, you’re English.

Me: No, my husband is English, but I’m American.

Neighbor: You know, my husband and I did wonder why you spoke with a Midwestern accent, when you’re English.

Me: Um…like I said, I’m not English, I’m from the East Coast.

Neighbor: Are you sure you’re not from the Midwest?

Me: Quite sure. Unless Maine has recently become part of the Midwest.

Neighbor: Then why is your father English?

Me: My father is not English. He’s from Massachusetts.

Neighbor: I met him at the park and he’s English.

Me: You must have met my husband’s father; he’s English.

Neighbor: He said he was your father.

Me: I…don’t think he would say that. Maybe you misunderstood.

Neighbor: No, he said he was your father.

Me: I think I hear the twins calling, gotta go!

Let this be a lesson to you all- lay off the dubes after the mid-twenties. If you carry on toking the wacky tabaccy well into the 30s and 40s, you risk becoming irrational and offensive to neighbors in later years.

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Give it up for my Other Children

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , on July 25, 2009 | 9 Comments »

It’s true, I don’t speak of them often, but I love them just the same. It’s a distant, convenient love. A smile here and there. A few whispered words of encouragement.

“Grow, babies, grow!”

 

bananas

And grow they have. Give it up for Momma’s banana trees- they have made me proud. A bumper crop this season, no doubt about it. But now the question is, what to do with the hundreds of bananas ripening in my yard? I’ve made banana muffins and banana bread. What else can I make? Help!

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A Heartfelt Thanks to That Crazy Old Hag

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , , , on July 21, 2009 | 10 Comments »

All Mothers of Multiples know that part of our job description is dealing with/tolerating people who feel compelled to talk to us about/call us out on having, our multiples. It goes with the territory, doesn’t it ladies? Some of these strangers are nice, many are well- meaning, a few are quite obnoxious, and some are downright crazy. As the only Mother of Multiples on this island (that I know of) I thought I’d seen it all…

Turns out I hadn’t. I recently met the craziest, most offensive old hag on the planet. I knew from the get go she was trouble, smelled the crazy on her and would have gone out of my way to avoid her, but she outsmarted me- jumped through the elevator doors as they were closing. At the resort. It was 10am, and Jungledad and I were returning to our room after a refreshing dip in the pool, to put the girls down for a nap. Suddenly BAM! There she was. A woman well into the grandma years, wearing a string bikini. Leathery elephant skin, jiggly bits everywhere. Just wrong on so many levels. Serious breech of resort etiquette. One wears a cover up in the hotel. Always. Sometimes newlyweds like to wander around the resort in their hotel bathrobes, bless their little hearts, but that’s as informal as it gets. By all means let it all hang out at the beach, but no one wants your bits in their face inside a cramped elevator.

The second the doors close, old elephant skin starts yapping away, asking if the bar is open. We say we don’t know. Its 10am, were holding babies, we’re that last people who’d know bar hours. She says she’s dying for a Coors. Goes on to explain the differences in the price of Coors at the various resort bars. Coors, Coors, Coors, yap yap yap. Who is this woman? She’s got this resort thing all wrong. Champagne with breakfast? Bien sur. Mojito with lunch? Muy bien. Pimms and lemonade in late afternoon? Capital! Coors at 10am? Hell to the no.

Just when I’m starting to think that this is the longest elevator ride I’ve ever been on, it gets worse. The alarm goes off. The elevator stops. I full out panic. I CANNOT stand another moment with this woman. The elevator starts again. The hag blames Mumu, accuses her of hitting the alarm button. Probably true, but not polite to say so, and I hit the button for the next floor, knowing this woman is going to a higher floor, just to get the hell away from her. My plan is thwarted. She actually follows us off elevator, and waits with us for the next one. Gets off on our floor, and follows us. I know she’s following us, because I deliberately take a detour to a side lobby/sitting area, and she follows us in. She points to Lulu, whom my husband holding, and asks him if “That’s a girl too.” Jungledad says yes, and the crazy old hag seizes my arm and lets out a huge sigh. Then she gives me this deep, pitying look and says, “Well, I guess those are the breaks, huh?” Say WHAT??? I’m too stunned to answer, and in my silence, she follows up with “8 papaya seeds.” I don’t respond, because she’s obviously lost her mind, and she grabs my arm again, saying ever louder, “8 PAPAYA SEEDS! NOT NINE, EIGHT. Take them every night. Best birth control in the world.” Then she pats my hand. I totally want to punch her in the mouth. Yeah, why don’t I just eat 30 papaya seeds and sterilize myself so god forbid I don’t have any more beautiful, wonderful, incredibly sweet baby girls? Crazy, skanky old ho.

So I’m steamed about this conversation for a few minutes, walking back to our room. Then, I’m oddly grateful. It occurs to me that this woman was bothering us because she was all alone. All alone and desperate to drink. Based on our conversation, I don’t think she had any children of her own (guess those papaya seeds served her well). Poor her. I pity her, I do. Because when I’m her age, if I play my cards right, I’ll have two smart, happy, well adjusted adult daughters who will pat my hand and say “Mom, we love you… but you are way too old to wear a bikini.” That is, if I ever suffer from dementia and convince myself that I could, at any age, pull one off. And a husband to pour me a morning mimosa, and walk with me on the beach. So thank you crazy old hag, wherever you are. Its always good to be reminded how lucky we are.

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Already Fighting over Men

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , on July 19, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I had a lot of interesting encounters with strangers on my last mini-vacay, from the wonderful to the whack. I’ll start with the wonderful.

That first day at the beach we spent a great deal of time in the ocean. Who wouldn’t? It’s so warm and wavy and fun. At one point, Mumu and I were playing along the shoreline while Jungledad had Lulu way out in the surf, when we were both startled by a unexpected sight. From the ocean water arose 3 Adonises. In teeny tiny speedos, with bodies, the likes of which I had only previously seen on television. Now obviously I know Jungledad is the most smart, handsome, sexy, wonderful man on the planet, but one must give credit where credit is due, and hot damn, those physiques were really something. To see 3 at once rise out of the water like frikin Poseidon…well Mumu and I were gobsmacked to say the least. What happened next was even more surprising. The Adonises swarmed Lulu. They were all about her. Smiling, cooing, asking all about her. Lulu looked stunned and delighted by all the attention. Apparently the men had just completed a 3 mile swim along the beach and were thoroughly invigorated by the experience. I think I would have to be resuscitated if I ever attempted such a Odyssey. When they found out we lived on the island they started giving us directions as to where to start this swim. Yea, I’ll get right on that!

I don’t know why they chose Lulu out of all the children on the beach, but I do have a theory. I believe they recognized in her, a fellow athlete. Lulu’s stomach is just as ripped as theirs. The girl will run up and down steep hills 12 times straight without showing a single sign of fatigue, while Mumu and I pant and beg for mercy. Wait… now that I think of it, this wasn’t even the first time Lulu managed to attract the opposite sex on that trip. Her first conquest was a 2 year old boy in the lobby. I watched in amazement as she made a beeline for him, then batted her eyelashes,

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The girl’s always had serious lashes, and serious eyebrows ;)

 

swayed her little hips and babbled sweet nothings. I haven’t flirted in years- where the hell did she learn it from? Even more troubling, Mumu later saw that same boy by the side of the pool and took off after him like a bat out of hell. Mercifully, he and his Mom were headed in the opposite direction. I truly hope against hope that since my daughters look so different and have such different personalities, that they will have different taste in men. PLEASE GOD. I have seen how violent they can get fighting over their father’s dirty t-shirts from the hamper. God help the adolescent boy that comes between them. If one does, I swear I am sending them both to a convent.

Oh no, now I’m too tired to tell you about our whacked out, totally crazy resort stranger encounter… I’ll save it for next post :)

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Mini Vacay IV : Paradise Lost…then Found.

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , , , on July 12, 2009 | 9 Comments »

It all started with a comment on my last post. Carrie, intuitive goddess that she is, read my resignation from motherhood and suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was time for another vacay. Girlfriend was preaching to the choir yo. I pricelined as fast as my fingers would carry me to the 4 star resort on the sunny side of the island for the price of a 2 star on the wet side. Then I called my husband. “I might have done something…” I blurted out. “My blog friend made me do it!” Jungledad laughed, promised to buy bubbly on his way home to toast Carrie’s brilliance, and less than 24 hours later, we were on the road. So how did it go? Well…

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We ran for the waves

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and cheered when we got there.

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Built a scale model of Machu Picchu…

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climbed inside and watched the sunset.

And somewhere along the way, learned a very valuable lesson.

Comfort

Parenting

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is a lot like living in paradise.

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What’s the point if you can’t enjoy it?

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I QUIT!!!

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , , on July 9, 2009 | 13 Comments »

Aggghhhhhh! That’s it, I quit! I resign as a twin Mommy. It’s over. They have only themselves to blame. They have brought this on their naughty little twinnie selves.

It’s 10am, and I am ready to throw in the towel. The girls are napping, I am venting. Big time. The morning started out okay. Lulu and Mumu ate their oatmeal with gusto. And my oatmeal, and Jungledad’s oatmeal, but that’s par for the course. The madness began the moment Jungledad pulled out of the driveway. They were saving it up for me yo.

After dual meltdowns over Daddy’s departure, Mumu tackled me on the couch, where I stupidly sat drinking tea. The tea soaked my clean shirt and hurt like a bastard because it was hot tea. Whatever. Over it, didn’t even change. The girls ran off to the kitchen. I naively thought their silence might mean they were playing with their toys in there, and I started mopping the spilled tea off the couch and rug. Then I heard it. It sounded like a waterfall. In my kitchen.

I arrive on the scene to find Mumu screaming and frantically shaking an enormous box of wheat macaroni, while Lulu gleefully ice skates over the mess, pausing only to stuff the uncooked mac in her mouth. Aggghhh, mother$%#er! What evs, leap into action, on all fours picking up macaroni while Lulu continues to spread it to every corner of the kitchen. Pry it off her feet, out of her mouth, put the 10,000 pieces in a bowl. Am just dropping final pieces in when I see out of the corner of my eye, Mumu tugging a cord. Drop the bowl of mac and dive across the kitchen to catch Jungledad’s ipod as it hurtles toward the floor. Why on earth would he leave it on the counter !? Mumu bursts into tears at being thwarted, while Lulu joyfully overturns the bowl of macaroni I just spent a lifetime gathering. On top of it all, the kitchen is filled with the unmistakable scent of turd.

I grab Mumu and bring her to the living room to be changed. Wrestle her down amidst her wailing and get diaper off. Diaper is clean. Wrong baby. Put her down, grab Lulu, wrestle her down. Her spider limbs are everywhere. She manages to get not one, but TWO hands into her runny, smelly, disgusting poo. Then wipes them on the couch before I get to her with a wipe. Am about to clean couch and baby when I notice something shiny out of the corner of my eye. Mumu has scaled bookshelf. She brandishes a shiny dime in her hot little hand. In slow motion I see it headed for her mouth.

Get there in time, seize dime, pry baby off bookshelf. Run back over to other baby, who is drawing with poop on the couch. Mumble several unladylike words, scrub hands of poopy baby. Put both babies down for nap. Collapse on bed and vent via blog post. Hear babies fussing in cribs, but care not. Resign post as Twin Mommy, effective immediately.

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Picking Out Their Own Clothes

Posted in The Joy of Twins, tagged , , on July 6, 2009 | 8 Comments »

I guess I’m completely clueless, but I thought my girls would be at least 4 before they started criticizing my fashion sense. Boy was I wrong!

They’re only 1 for Pete’s sake, and have never seen a fashion magazine, a movie, or any TV other than the news and the occasion episode of Fraggle Rock, yet Mumu has decided to start dressing herself. She feels my wardrobe selections for her are not up to par. This does not bode well for the future…

It all started the day after Father’s Day. On Father’s Day, if you’ll remember, we were busy sucking the marrow out of life via a scenic drive through the jungle, and chowing down on ho hos in anticipation of the apocalypse. In other words, just a typical day. The girls loved those ho hos of course, as they hadn’t previously ever had junk food, and were in raptures over their sublime yumminess. Lulu managed to spread the chocolaty goodness all over her bright pink dress, no surprises there. What is surprising is that the next day, Mumu picked her sister’s chocolate stained dress out of the dirty laundry basket and became obsessed with it. I kept hiding it at the bottom of the basket, and she kept fishing it out and waving it around,flinging her arms up and down and grunting determinedly in my general direction. This went on for quite a while before I realized she was trying to tell me she wanted to wear the chocolate smeared dress. She was so insistent I finally said what the hell and pulled it over her head. She was ecstatic. She looked…completely nuts.

The outfit she was already wearing before I pulled the dress over was fairly avent-garde to say the least. This is because Jungledad had dressed her. We’ve fallen into this supersweet routine in the mornings where I sleep in, or check email in bed at my leisure, and Jungledad gets the girls up, changes them, feeds them breakfast, and sometimes dresses them, before making me my breakfast and coffee. I told ya- supersweet. If this is not the normal routine in other households DON’T YOU DARE tell my husband. Anyway, I love it when he dresses the girls, because he often puts them in something completely insane. That day was no exception. It was a chilly, rainy morning, so he put them in long sleeve onesies with colorful patterns on them. Then he added brightly striped baby legs for added warmth. The combined effect of all those colors, patterns, and stripes was blinding and slightly seizure inducing, but Jungledad was so proud, and the babies so snuggly, I just had to smile. The new outfit created by the multicolored patterns, stripes, and then chocolate stained hot pink flowered dress was really something. Watch out Yves Saint Laurent, I am revolutionising women’s fashion, one toddler at a time.

Since that day, Mumu has not been shy about letting me know when she disapproves of wardrobe selections, and has started making suggestions of her own. Jungledad and I now offer her a choice between two garments in the morning, and this has so far worked out well. Of course, Jungledad likes to tease her by grabbing the outfit she didn’t choose and pretending to try and put it on her. She is always appalled by the switcheroo and immediately grabs the offensive garment out of his hands and flings it to the floor before thrusting the correct outfit into his hands. This kills him every time. Well, at least she’s a girl who knows what she wants! We offer Lulu a choice now as well, but she’s not nearly so adamant/aggressive in her selection process. How about you? Do you let your kiddos choose their own clothes?

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